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 "Photo: David Gonzales")
Speeding around the nursery on a golf cart, I thought to myself, many good books have been written in prison.
Wait. Back up. Two years ago, I was stoned. Real stoned. It was high school graduation night. They were handing out diplomas and loudly celebrating something about four years of hard work—or something; I don’t know. I didn’t really care. All I could think about was the nifty spin move I would make after accepting my little piece of paper and tickling the school president’s palm as I shook his hand. That and how I was going to hit the bong between here and dinner with my family.
“What are you going to do this summer before you take off to live all on your own 3,000 miles away?” my aunt asked.
I looked up from the crayons and paper tablecloth upon which I apathetically scribbled. I never did learn to color within the lines. Apparently, all anyone wanted to talk about was the H.
“Are you excited for college? I mean, it is Harvard!” my cousin reminded me. Her voice was distant. I was distant.
Here is a table of delicious food and loving family but all I could think about is getting loaded. I made something up but, really, I just wanted to party—you know, get my kicks before I would commit to school, grow up, and move on with life. I had an academic scholarship and a promising collegiate swimming career ahead of me but little did I know that by that point the “party” was long over. You see, I had lost the power of choice and control when it came to either drinking or doing drugs by the time I was eighteen. It would take me six more years of “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride” insanity in order to fully concede to my innermost self that I was and will always be powerless over drugs and alcohol.
I remember clearly the first time I got drunk. I was already a junior in high school. I threw up. I blacked out. I kept drinking. I frantica
lly searched the backyard for more liquor (in the bushes, up in the trees, and inside the Jacuzzi engine compartment) long after my friends had gone to bed. I had to keep drinking. It was just like that. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to stop.
So back to the golf cart. I had nearly overdosed that weekend on methamphetamine. It wasn’t my fault that they were all out to get me and had to swallow the hundreds of dollars of drugs that were supposed to get me through at least a week. Of course, I had seen other people’s lives ruined by this drug—both in and out of rehab—but it was not enough for me to say “Hmm, maybe this isn’t the path I should be on.”
Fear sobered me for a bit. I started working hard at the nursery and training intensively for swimming again. Although, I had been on medical leave of absence from Harvard for three semesters, I decided this time I would fly right, read heady books, and swim competitively again. You know, do the deal. I returned in January of ‘06 only to be committed to a nearby mental institution by the end of the semester after which I was allowed to return home to finish my finals. Apparently, running down the halls naked carrying a wall tapestry while shouting “I am Ahab” is not OK.
Up until this point, I was absolutely against the idea of psych meds—despite being a psych./pre-med student. I began to think that if only I applied the lessons I had (and would) learn from abnormal psychology lectures, I could stay on top of all my “symptoms” and be alright—maybe even healthy enough to live the life I had always wanted: happy, creative, successful.
I stayed dry for most of that summer with the intentions of lighting the world on fire with both my fast swimming and stellar academics. I wanted to prove to my parents, peers, and the rest of the world that I was not the same immature, ungrateful kid who graduated from high school. Yes, I would show them.
Less than eight weeks into the semester, I could no longer live on campus. I decided to take another voluntary leave of absence. I put down the bottle and picked up the pills. If the doctor prescribed them, then that made it medicine and, therefore, it was OK. And, boy, did I medicate.
The next six months were spent training for swimming harder than ever before, working in an office, and passionately writing poem after poem. Not long after falling short of Olympic Trial cuts, I quit swimming. The poems stopped working shortly after that. Everything stopped working. All I had left were the drugs and barren visions of grandiosity. The way I saw it, well, if Bill Gates could drop out of Harvard and start Microsoft then surely I could do something great that would revolutionize the world, too. Never mind the fact that I could not write one single line of computer code or even return phone calls within a timely manner. I didn’t even have voicemail set up at this point. My world kept getting smaller and smaller.
Within a year, the roar of vacuums made me feel like my soul was being sucked out of my body. On Christmas Eve, I violently screamed that my brothers were eating my brain. Everything hurt. Yet I could not stop picking up the next drug or the next drink. I seemingly had no choice.
This hopelessness. This misery. This despair. It all continued for another year—whether in the shanty Mission District on the dirty streets of San Francisco or under the care of my parents or grandparents in the safety of a warm home, I tried to make sense of the mess my life had become. Harvard was nowhere in sight. I had failed two semesters at two different city colleges. No chance of writing any real computer code with all those voices and hackers chattering in my head. The poems were gone. The sh*tty committee had long taken over. I no longer had a vote; there was no respite from their relentless ranting. Books, music, TV, movies, paintings, and everyone everywhere was always talking to me or about me in some doublespeak secret language I could never quite comprehend, but I knew it was all very important because it was most certainly about my apocalyptic doom.
I firmly resolved to get sober in early December 2008; my parents were relieved. Within an hour of this resolution, I had blacked out on a big bottle of Jagermeister and a handful of Klonopin. While tucking me into bed, my parents asked what was wrong, I kept muttering, "They gave me the codes, you see, I gotta save the world, I gotta save the world.”
I did not recall this conversation the next morning when they were baffled as was I by my inability to just not drink. I laughed. It was a sad laugh. I knew I could not save the world let alone myself. It was all over.
This binge lasted two more weeks before I landed in another mental hospital. They would soon have to hand me over to the undertaker or keep me locked up in a padded white room to ensure my own and others’ safety. I was comforted by this—then. But today, I am a free man. No psych meds. No psychologists. No bodyguard to make sure I don’t drink or use drugs. No psychotic voices. And, to my utmost relief, no obsession to drink or to use.
How did this happen? I became willing to become willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. My entire life had focused on keeping things gray; suddenly, it became very black and white. I had two options: 1) to go on to the bitter end (dry or drunk) blotting out every last bit of consciousness or 2) to accept spiritual help.
I learned that all my troubles had been of my own making. Extreme self-centeredness, selfishness, and delusion after delusion that I had taken for fact blocked me off from the true nature of things as they really are. These defects of character were a problem long before I ever got drunk or high. I came to accept that there is a God and that I am not it.
From this point, all sorts of amazing things happened and are continuing to happen and will continue to happen as long as I remain willing to maintain a certain, simple attitude towards that Power greater than myself.
5 comments
I also deal with many of the mentioned 'issues', yet I do not have a 'sexy' story about dealing with the system.I do empathize for the article's person's story. And I do believe the article tried to bring upon more understanding of mental health issues. It could have been more informative than 'entertaining'.I also have a power greater than myself that power is my future self. I appeared before myself from the future in the present. I said to myself, "Dude. Lighten up!" Then I told myself, "Hey, I get it now. My mental health stories are funny. They don't need to be sexy and full of danger to get noticed." Then I high fived myself only to realize I was high fiving my reflection on someone's sun glasses.